“How’s your digestion?” she asked.
“Much better,” I said. “Knock on wood.”
I was about to tell her that I’d taken her advice and gone gluten-free over the summer—she had her own history of stress-related stomach problems—but just then Dr. Flick’s door opened and Ms. Dean walked out. She’d lost a lot of weight over the break, and everyone was talking about how hot she was, which was kind of amazing, because she’d been extremely not hot when I’d had her for freshman bio. She passed right by me on her way out.
“Hi, Ms. Dean,” I said.
She stopped and squinted, trying to get me in focus. Her face was flushed and she was hugging herself like she was cold, or maybe upset.
“Oh… Lily,” she said, as if I were the one who’d had the makeover. “I didn’t even recognize you.”
“Did you have a good summer?”
She took a deep breath and released it slowly.
“I did,” she said. “But it went by so fast.”
- 6 -
Vito felt a vague sense of dread as he touched the digits on his keypad. He’d originally thought it would be easier to make amends over the phone than to do it in person, but it turned out to be the opposite. Face-to-face, people could look in your eyes and see that you were sincere, that you weren’t just pretending to be sorry. It was harder over the phone, when all they had was a mental image of the person you used to be.
“Hello?”
“Yes, um… is this Kiki?”
There was a brief silence.
“Vito?”
“Yeah. I know it’s been a while. I—”
“How did you get this number?”
“I just need a minute, Kiki. I’m—”
“I go by Kimberly now.” Her voice was chilly. “And I’m married to a good man, just so you know.”
“That’s great, Ki… Kimberly. I’m happy for you. You deserve that. You were always good to me, and I didn’t treat you very well.”
“Oh…” There was a grudging note of surprise in her voice. “Okay. Huh.”
“I’m in recovery,” Vito explained. “I’m an alcoholic, and one of the steps—”
“I know the steps.” Her voice was softer now. “So you actually want to apologize to me after all these years?”
“I do. From the bottom of my heart. What I did was wrong.”
“What did you do?” she coaxed. “I’d like to hear you say it out loud.”
“Well, for one thing, I shouldn’t have cheated on you.”
“Go on. Who’d you cheat on me with?”
“With your cousin, Vanessa.”
“She was more than my cousin. She was like my sister and my best friend all in one. I hope it was worth it for you, Vito.”
“I’m a selfish person; I always was. I know I can’t fix the damage I’ve done, but I want you to know that I sincerely regret it.”
“Well…” She made a sound that was half chuckle, half sigh. “That’s better than nothing, I guess. I appreciate it.”
Vito hesitated. He could’ve ended the call there, but that would have been a disservice to both of them.
“There’s one other thing,” he told her. “My mom’s not dead.”
“What?”
“Yeah, she’s fine. She lives in North Carolina with my dad. They play a lot of golf.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I’m sorry I lied to you.”
“Why would you do that?” She sounded genuinely bewildered. “Why would you say…”
“I don’t know. I just… thought it was gonna be a one-night thing. I didn’t think we’d end up in a—”
“Oh my God,” she said. “You are a piece of human trash.”
“I’m gonna do better from now on,” Vito said, but the call was over by then.
- 7 - Tracy Flick
Kyle’s Hall of Fame proposal received unanimous approval from the School Board. To my amazement, he got everything he asked for—the plaques, the display cases, even the stars in the sidewalk—without any scaling back whatsoever. The thing I hadn’t understood was that he was funding the whole operation out of his own pocket, through the Dorfman Family Foundation. The Board was more than happy to let him throw his money around.
Our Selection Committee met for the first time in mid-October. There were five of us, three adults—Kyle, Jack, and myself—and two students. This was Kyle’s one and only concession to the Board. He’d wanted unilateral decision-making power, but his colleagues had pressed for a more inclusive and transparent process, and Kyle had reluctantly agreed.
As for the students, it made sense to invite Nate Cleary and Lily Chu—the President and Vice President of the Student Council—to serve with us on the Committee. After all, they’d already been chosen by their peers; nobody could accuse us of playing favorites. And they were both impressive kids—Lily more so than Nate, by a wide margin, though of course Nate had won the election.
Lily Chu
We went to a restaurant for our first meeting. A really nice one, right in the middle of the school day. I was sitting next to Principal Weede, and neither of us knew what to say to each other. At one point I mentioned that I couldn’t eat gluten, and Mr. Dorfman heard me from across the table.
“Why’s that?” he asked. “Do you have celiac disease?”
“Just an allergy, I think. My doctor’s not sure.”
“What do you mean, he’s not sure?”
“She,” I said. “My doctor’s a she. She said the test was ambiguous.”
“I bet it was.” He laughed like my doctor was a fool. “There’s no such thing as a gluten allergy. You either have celiac disease or you don’t. And celiac disease is quite rare.”
What was I supposed to say? Well, I used to have diarrhea a lot, but I don’t get it so much anymore?
“They’ve got some gluten-free dishes that look pretty good,” Dr. Flick told me. “You’ll be fine.”
She gave me a sympathetic smile, very mom-like, which I appreciated. She had a reputation around school for being kind of a bitch, but that wasn’t my experience. She’d been really sweet last spring, when I lost the election by twenty-seven votes and had to settle for Veep, which wouldn’t look nearly as good on my applications.
The world’s not fair, she told me. And then she gave me a big hug and whispered in my ear: You’re better than they are. Don’t ever forget that.
Nate Cleary
I was thrilled to be there, sitting at the same table as Kyle Dorfman. I mean, I have no idea if those net worth numbers on the internet are true—I’m guessing probably not—but even if you chopped that figure in half, you’re still talking a shitload of money, and now Kyle and I were hanging out on a Tuesday afternoon, sharing a side order of spicy fries.
On the surface I kept it pretty chill, though. At least I was less weird about it than Lily, who kept blushing and stammering whenever he asked her a question, which was kind of surprising, because she’d always been way more mature than everybody else in our class. I mean, even back in first grade, she used to bring books to the playground and read them at the picnic table during recess, while everyone else ran around screaming like idiots and throwing wood chips in the air.